Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales Announces Additional Funding for Oklahoma City as Part of the Justice Department’s Comprehensive Anti-Gang Initiative

Oklahoma City to Receive $2.5 Million to Combat Gang
Violence
and Increase Prevention Efforts

OKLAHOMA CITY – Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales today joined U.S.
Attorney John C. Richter of the Western District of Oklahoma and Oklahoma City
Mayor Mick Cornett to announce the expansion of the Justice Department’s
Comprehensive Anti-Gang Initiative to include Oklahoma City as one of four
additional sites targeting dangerous street gangs and promoting prevention
efforts to keep communities and neighborhoods safe. As part of the
Comprehensive Anti-Gang Initiative, Oklahoma City will receive $2.5 million
in additional grant funding to combat gang violence.

“Every American deserves to live free from the fear of violent gangs,”
said Attorney General Gonzales. “The Justice Department’s Comprehensive
Anti-Gang Initiative helps keep communities safe by providing additional
resources to increase law enforcement and prevention efforts in targeted areas
across the nation. I applaud the work of the men and women of Oklahoma who have
dedicated their lives to protecting our communities, and I am pleased to
provide additional resources that will help make the neighborhoods of Oklahoma
City safer from gang violence.”

Oklahoma City is one of four target areas chosen to receive additional
funding as part of the Department’s initiative to combat gang violence,
including Indianapolis, Rochester, N.Y., and Raleigh/Durham, N.C. Supported by
$2.5 million in grant funds per site, the Comprehensive Anti-Gang Initiative
incorporates prevention and enforcement efforts, as well as programs to assist
released prisoners as they re-enter society. By integrating prevention,
enforcement and prisoner re-entry, the Comprehensive Anti-Gang Initiative aims
to address gang membership and gang violence at every stage.

“I want to thank the hard work and dedication of law enforcement and city
leaders, who have come together to fight the scourge of gang violence,” said
U.S. Attorney Richter. “We have an ambitious goal—the eradication of criminal
gangs in Oklahoma City. With these grants, we can build on the progress we
already are making in both the number of prosecutions and the number of our
City’s young people whom we are able to save from the clutches of gang life.”
In February 2006, Attorney General Gonzales announced the creation of the
Justice Department’s Comprehensive Anti-Gang Initiative, designed to support
law enforcement in combatting violent gang crime, while also promoting
prevention efforts that discourage gang involvement. As part of the
initiative, in May 2006 the Department provided anti-gang resources for
prevention, enforcement and offender reentry efforts to six sites across the
nation: Los Angeles, Tampa, Cleveland, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Milwaukee and the
“222 Corridor” that stretches from Easton to Lancaster in Pennsylvania. The
Comprehensive Anti-Gang Initiative has already made strides in the original
six sites.For example, in Cleveland, one of the most violent gangs operating
in the target area has been dismantled through both federal and state
investigations and prosecutions that have resulted in 63 federal and state
indictments. Fifty-five defendants have pled guilty and the remainder are
awaiting trial.

The Justice Department’s strategy to combat gang violence around the nation
is two-fold: First, prioritize prevention programs to provide America’s
youth, as well as offenders returning to the community, with opportunities that
help them resist gang involvement. Second, ensure robust enforcement policies
when gang-related violence does occur.

As a result, in Oklahoma City, on May 23, 2006, U.S. Attorney Richter,
joined by federal, state and local law enforcement partners announced a
comprehensive anti-gang strategy for Oklahoma City and the formation of the
Oklahoma City Metropolitan Gang Task Force.

Oklahoma City was selected to receive these grant funds based on a variety
of factors, including the need for concentrated anti-gang resources,
established infrastructure to support the envisioned prevention, enforcement
and re-entry components, and existing partnerships prepared to focus intensely
on the gang problem. Building on the comprehensive anti-gang strategy unveiled
last year, U.S. Attorney John Richter will work with state, local and
community partners in Oklahoma City to implement strategies that address the
following areas:

Prevention – The Department will make
available approximately $1 million in grants per community to support
comprehensive prevention efforts such as the Gang Reduction Program, which
focuses on reducing youth-gang crime and violence by addressing the full range
of personal, family and community factors that contribute to juvenile
delinquency and gang activity.

Enforcement – The Department will
make available approximately $1 million in grants per community to help
support enforcement programs that will focus law enforcement efforts on the
most significant violent gang offenders.

Prisoner Re-entry – The Department
will make available approximately $500,000 per community to create re-entry
assistance programs with faith-based and other community organizations that
will provide transitional housing, job readiness and placement assistance, and
substance abuse and mental health treatment to prisoners re-entering society.

The Comprehensive Anti-Gang Initiative complements existing Department of
Justice programs to combat gangs and reduce gun-related crime throughout the
country. Those programs include the Violent Crime Impact Teams, Safe Streets
Task Forces and the Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) initiative, under which
the number of federal firearms prosecutions has more than doubled in the past
six years, compared to the six years prior to PSN’s implementation. Since
2001, the Department of Justice has allocated over $1.6 billion to PSN to
combat violent crime at the federal, state and local levels.